Several stars of this documentary about the old Wimbledon FC were so upset by what they saw at a preview screening that they have subsequently tried to dissociate themselves from the film, because of its focus on the violent way Wimbledon often went about their business.

Dave Bassett, the manager when Wimbledon clambered up the divisions and earned that Crazy Gang sobriquet, insisted: "I didn't want anything to do with it, having seen it."

But, as well as having his say, Bassett has trousered his fee.

And there is a stench of hypocrisy wafting over all the complaints.

Players and others associated with the club revelled in their notoriety, so what did they expect the film would be? Sepia-tinted reminiscences about the beautiful game?

Much more genuine than the bluster about brutality is what Gould told me. He was, after all, the manager who achieved the Crazy Gang's most improbably glorious triumph: the 1988 FA Cup Final victory over the then seemingly invincible Liverpool team.

Modern clubs are even less equipped to cope with it than teams we came up against then were

Bobby Gould

And with Wimbledon's true successors, League Two side AFC Wimbledon, facing the far from invincible current Liverpool team in the FA Cup third round on the first weekend of the New Year, Gould's reminiscences about what happened more than a quarter of a century ago, have a special relevance.

He said: "I think a club could do it again: do what we did. Because the big clubs would say, 'It's not football!' But it is. And modern clubs are even less equipped to cope with it than teams we came up against then were."

So what did the old Dons do, exactly? Having slogged along in amateur and semi-professional football for almost a century, they entered the Football League for the 1977-78 campaign.

Every one of the following eight seasons brought either promotion or relegation and, in 1986 they reached the top tier.

But the how is as significant as the what.

Bassett, who became manager in 1981, perfected a rudimentary approach based on getting the ball into the opposition area as quickly as possible and challenging ferociously - and often illegally - for it once it was there. Think Stoke under Tony Pulis, and then some.

In the BT film, John Fashanu, the striker who won two England caps while with Wimbledon, hogs the camera with a plethora of boasts about how the Dons were real men, made men of new signings, and bettered any opponents who were less manly. Fashanu brags, on camera, how teams were often left quaking by pre-match threats of violence in the tunnel.

And when they weren't striving so hard to prove they were men, the Crazy Gang were playing schoolboy japes on each other. Clothing was cut up or smeared with liniment. Sam Hammam, the wealthy Lebanese who was chairman throughout all the Gang craziness, was among those upset by the film. He left as soon as the preview was finished, pausing only to hug and kiss Bassett and Gould.

But Hammam, who tried hard to move the club to Dublin before selling up to folk who took it to Milton Keynes, absolutely wallowed in the Gang's infamy.

So did others. Vinnie Jones, whose bone-jarring tackle on Steve McMahon in the final is celebrated in the film, went on to make a career as a movie hard-man. Fashanu fronted the TV show Gladiators.

Gould though, remained a football man, who maintains that what Wimbledon achieved on the pitch was extraordinary. He said: "When you are living it, getting on with your daily stuff, raising a family and so on, you just get on with your job, which is the football. So I probably didn't appreciate it properly at the time. It's now, when you look back at how little money we spent on wages and transfers, and how well we played in that final, that you take some pride in it."

Gould became manager when Bassett left in 1987.

He brought in ex-Arsenal and England coach Don Howe and, although he acquiesced with the advice of senior players to stick with the direct style, he signed five decent players. And he won the FA Cup - not through brute force, but with a goal from a clever free-kick drill and a penalty save which goalkeeper Dave Beasant had planned for.

Wimbledon became only the third club to win both the FA Cup and the FA Amateur Cup - and the fact that the others were Old Carthusians and Royal Engineers emphasises how unlikely that feat was in modern football.

Gould, now 68, goes running every day, is dauntingly fit, and has a regular berth on talkSPORT radio, where he is called The Gouldfather. Perhaps BT could make another film, in which the Bassett craziness is put to one side and the football achievement of beating Liverpool is properly considered. They could call that film Gouldfather Too.